Rock and Roll in Indianapolis

Good, live, local music is as easily found in Naptown (short for IndiaNAPolis) as cornfields are in the rest of Indiana. Catch a burgeoning local band or rising out-of-towners like Neko Case or Tokyo Police Club at Birdy’s Bar & Grill on the border of Broad Ripple and Glendale. It’s one of the best small venues in the city, and as added bonus, it doubles as a bartending school (read heavy pour). Another small club, Radio Radio, is owned by a Brit transplant with deep ties to the local music scene (he plays bass in hard-core/punk band the Zero Boys). Also in Fountain Square, the nonprofit Big Car Gallery stages painting, sculpture, and photography exhibitions, spoken-word jams, and, of course, lots of live local music. Before you leave town, guzzle some namesake brews in the PBR lounge at the Melody Inn, which sits proudly in a working-class commercial strip in Butler-Tarkington. The club opened as a piano bar in 1935, but now it hosts Punk Rock Night every Saturday.